All the Times
by Perseid85
Summary: "The second time was in anger."


The second time is in anger.

She clacks her way down to his server room. He's all stammered sentences and confusion. Half finished words. She kisses him. Hard. His look is something like betrayal (again), always confusion, maybe a little bit of lust.

She pushes. Is rough. But, then... it's not like he says no. Memories of him saying, "I trusted you," Flit through her. She probably shouldn't have hit him that time he called her a cold bitch. Definitely not. When it all comes down to it, she probably shouldn't, well, a lot of things.

He doesn't push her away afterwards. Not physically anyway, although his look of, again, confusion and reproach does. It's not as if she would have stayed anyway. Not as if this was ever anything like affection.

"Was it about power?" he asks as she walks away, speaking to the back of her. She doesn't even turn, won't turn. It's impossible to put into words this combination of wanting to break him and then wanting, even more, to get to be the one to collect the pieces.

* * *

When she seduces him (such a dramatic phrase) for the first time she thinks, "This is about loneliness." And it would be hard to counter. Hard for anyone to correct. Because aren't they both so lonely. Isn't everyone in there so lonely.

Afterwards, she constantly questions, "Why? Why? Why _him_?" And, our course, back then (even back then) he always made her feel things very acutely. Annoyance mostly. But it was something, wasn't it, to have that control over someone so smart. Because who could deny that he was a genius.

And so maybe it was about power too. Everything is about power.

She is so completely naked with him that first time. And he was with her, although isn't he constantly just a bunch of naked emotions. She always knew what he was thinking. (That is until later when she didn't. When she realized she had been taking it for granted. Then later still when she did again, but this time didn't want to.)

But it couldn't have been about power because she is so so tired. And she lets him take the lead after she got things started. He's clumsy and, dare she think it, adorable, in his way. There is an innocence in him that cannot be defined because he corrupts.

He corrupts absolutely. He'll bring about the end of mankind. He knows it. He won't be able to stop himself. This is all a game to him. This playing god. "You take good care of your toys," she had pushed the words at him through the air once in rage. It's true; these people are his play things. "You have no morals."

It wasn't a cruelty that she saw in him. He wasn't a hard man. Just one with a simple confusion about the fundamental way that the world worked. An inability to connect. And yet.

"I feel so close to you now," he says, with a smile, shaking some stray hairs from over his eyes so he can see her better. This time, the first time, when she is so naked with him, "I know," pushing those extra strands back off his forehead, kissing him right there.

Quietly, "It's not love?" And him not hearing the question mark in her voice, "Yeah. Yeah. Of course not," and then, with a smirk, "We have the dolls for that."

* * *

After the second time there are many many times in rapid secession, after each of which she vowes, "Never again."

There are times when she's gentle. When she cries or he cries or they both cry. When they both try to hide this from each other. Crying remember his words, "I trusted you." Yes, yes you did, darling.

She thinks, later, much later, that in these moments when they are crying and trying to pretend they are not, that she must have known of the pieces that were slipping loose inside of him. How could she not tell? How could she not care? Why did it take until he was completely and utterly broken, until the end times, until Armageddon, until the Fall, for her to realize that this is all something like love.

* * *

And another time. He's furious. Yelling at her. Kissing her. Screaming, "How could you do this to me!"

It's not a question, the way he says it; it's a statement of fact. _You do this to me._ When he's screaming, again, "I trusted you," and she knows it means a version of love.

(How can this be? It's nothing that she would have ever recognized as something like love this coming together in pain that they create for each other. This coming together in recognition that they are the same now - corrupted. Could this ever be absolution? Not today.)

He is, has always been, very dramatic. There is a sense of irony in how theatrical he is. How cliche it feels to her as he yells and pushes her down on her knees. She is always such a powerful woman - a powerful _person_. She thinks, "How did it come to this?" Her knees keening at the pressure of the floor, rebelling at the discomfort. If he tried to hit her now (he doesn't) she'd let him. She'd be glad.

* * *

The one time he said no.

"You're drunk. Not this time."

* * *

She thinks after Bennett dies that it will be over for good. She doesn't seek him out. After Bennett. After Rossum. If you shook him would he rattle with all his cracked pieces? In the end he comes to her, takes her hand, brings him with her down down to his chthonian dwelling. He's slow and gentle, and she's surprised.

"I thought you loved her?"

"I did. I do. It's different from how I feel about you."

She's smart enough not to ask what he means. She's smart enough to recognize in herself what her not asking means. Ironic that she'd end up being the one to love him more.

* * *

It's funny, she doesn't remember the last time. Although, of course, there was a last time. The purity of her devotion to him now startles her. She never thought herself capable of it. There are many things she never thought herself capable of on both sides of morality - so many things she's done. His presence is so concrete, so always there, that she feels more responsibility for him than for anything else. This hell of a world that they live in now, it's her fault. Her's and his.

Perhaps in the end he's the better one because he blames himself more. If his break from reality has taught her anything it's that. Or perhaps she's the better one because she's the one who is strong enough to bear it. She bears it for both of them. She's the one that perseveres.


End file.
